Political reveries of a fallen academician The concerted indiscretions of Saint-Pierre

This article offers an examination of the unique relationship that Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre, maintained with his fellow academicians, his role within the Académie française at the end of Louis XIV’s reign, the place he assigns to the academic model in his thinking, the paths that he followed to exchange views with his peers and spread his ideas—especially his political thinking—and that led him closer to a clandestine philosophy.